Standing Still
by Cheri-sama
Summary: Irritatingly comfortable with their current relationship, they're not going anywhere, just merely standing still.


_Disclaimer: Ownership of these two - but not heaven or hell - belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman._

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**Standing Still**

When Aziraphale returned from the bakery one early Wednesday morning - mornings were an easy time to wake when one had the motivation of good food - there was a rather bedraggled and pot-less plant left upon his front stoop.

The angel sighed and shifted his fragrant bag of baked goods so that he could unlock the shop door and carry the plant carefully inside.

He wished Crowley would find a better way to encourage his plants to grow. While gardening was a commendable and wholly undemonic hobby, Aziraphale could not approve of the way he went about it. Especially since he always ended up with the cast-offs. If he himself hadn't started giving away the plants as soon as they were healthy once again, his shop and apartment would have very quickly begun to resemble a topiary.

Casting one last look longingly at the warmly steaming and inviting bag he had placed on the counter - that was piled high with papers and less rare books to hide the fact that there might be a cash till under there somewhere - he reluctantly went to get a pot for the abandoned plant.

After the first dozen plants that Crowley had brought by, the angel had gone to a nearby hardware store and stocked up on cheap clay pots, keeping them in the corner of his apartment for plant type emergencies. Not that he would have considered them emergencies _per se_, just that if he didn't pot them quickly, there was the chance that he would end up with soil all over his precious books - which boded ill for the aforementioned demon.

After all, just because Aziraphale was an angel didn't mean he couldn't hold a grudge. For a little while. A short time. Who was he kidding? While he could drum up righteous anger for the general forces of darkness, Crowley didn't seem to have ever fallen in that category - and sometimes Aziraphale was sure the demon knew exactly how far he could exploit that fact. It was simultaneously one of the perks and downsides of such a long relationship.

When the angel finally had the plant placed properly in it's new pot, filled to the brim with enriched and fertilized soil and just the right amount of water, he spoke to it soothingly and placed it out of sight in case Crowley came around before he had found it a new home.

He had barely returned to the front shop and was reaching into the bakery bag when the tiny bell above the shop door tinkled merrily, announcing the presence of a potential customer.

"Angel, you here?"

Aziraphale squashed the unangelic feelings that rose up at the sound of Crowley's voice (a mixture of annoyance at being interrupted not once but twice due to the demon, and fluttery heart palpitations that might have been happiness but couldn't have been healthy).

"I'm here," he finally said, before Crowley started nosing around looking for him, and messed up his carefully messed-up shelves.

Crowley edged his way around a precarious stack of books and made his way to the counter, spying the bakery bag. "Ooh, are those from the new bakery around the corner," he asked, pulling a soft and fragrant croissant from the bag and biting into it lustily. He released a nearly orgasmic moan of happiness at the tasted, a sound which had Aziraphale blushing and turning his gaze to his own croissant in order to occupy his thoughts in a more angelic manner.

In turn, Crowley opened his eyes and paused in his eating to watch the other being pick the baked good apart with plump fingers and lick stray crumbs off the tips in an unconsciously sexy manner. At that moment, the demon was glad of two things:

1) that his kind wasn't prone to blushing; and

2) that being supernatural didn't mean that either demons or angels could read minds,

because what he was thinking at that moment would - or so he thought - have given rise to one of Aziraphale's few and far between bouts of anger. He would have been surprised to know how often his friend had entertained similar thoughts.

As Crowley had eventually become more good over the time he had spent with the angel, Aziraphale had likewise become more lenient in what he considered bad.

Unfortunately for both of them, neither was ready to make any sort of overture that might change the comfortable stability of their relationship. Despite how much closer they had become during the events of the averted Apocalypse, they were both content - for now - to remain firmly entrenched in denial about any deeper feelings they might have for each other.

Instead they continued on not unlike before, sharing good food, good wine, and good company. And the occasional plant...

END


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